


A Whole New Year

by brosephine-grant (dollinkdollink)



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, holiday fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-20 07:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22078429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollinkdollink/pseuds/brosephine-grant
Summary: A new year and a next step.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 64





	A Whole New Year

Logan Roy was no longer in charge of Waystar Royco - at least, not officially - but every detail of the annual New Year’s Eve party had still gone through him, from the choice of hotel to the gleaming gold decorations to the setlist of the big jazz band.

Roman had been more than happy to leave him to it. As acting CEO and COO he and Gerri had more than enough on their plates already, and nothing put his father in better spirits than being able to boss an army of underlings around.

Roman scanned the ballroom for his partner in crime and found her tucked in the corner, deep in conversation with Cyd and Karolina. Her beaded black dress caught every bit of light like a starry night sky, but it was the two blue diamonds dangling from her ears on fine silver chains that drew his eyes immediately. 

She had worn them. He’d hoped she would.

***

He’d panicked two weeks earlier when he’d last seen her, finishing up some last minute business in her office before she left to spend the holidays at her eldest daughter's house in California. He’d had something planned, some charming yet seemingly effortless speech that he’d practiced that morning in the mirror, but when the time came he’d shoved the gift inelegantly into her hands with a mumbled “Merry Christmas”.

She’d raised an eyebrow and reached to untie the fussy little bow that the jewelry store clerk had topped it with, but he’d stopped her with a nervous flapping of his hands.

“You don’t have to - you can wait until Christmas.” He wanted suddenly, desperately, to downplay the gesture as much as possible, worried it might come off as too personal, or perhaps not personal enough. “It’s nothing, really. It’s just to say thank you, for… you know… everything.”

(He hadn’t even said goodbye, really, had just sort of saluted at her through her office window as he beat a hasty retreat.)

***

She’d stayed up late on Christmas Eve just to call him, and was the first to wish him a Merry Christmas when he woke up Christmas morning at his mother’s house.

“The earrings are lovely, Roman, thank you.” Her voice was neutral - pleasant, but unemotional - and he was grateful for that, grateful to her for knowing how uncomfortable he would have been if she’d made some great big deal of it.

Instead, she stayed up well past two a.m. California time, telling him about her disastrous family dinner, asking him about his own, her voice husky with exhaustion, becoming huskier as she told him “I’m surprised that anyone would want to spend Christmas with a creep like you... a filthy animal at a nice civilized table... a disgusting embarrassment…”

It was by far his favorite Christmas present.

***

He waited to approach her until she was finally alone, afraid of what might spill out of his mouth after seeing her in the flesh for the first time in two long weeks. He slid up beside her at the bar while she waited for her drink, aiming for suave but coming off, he suspected, more like an anxious teenager hovering over his mother’s shoulder, waiting for her to drive him to band practice.

“The queen bitch returns!”

She eyed him up and down coldly, but he could see how the corners of her lips had upturned in the slightest smile.

“Where’s your jester’s hat? Did it clash with the tuxedo?”

“Ha-ha” he responded mockingly, and then, “do you want to dance?”

“What?!”

“It’s not that crazy, Gerri, it’s a ballroom, there’s a band, there are other people dancing.” He knew he sounded defensive, so he tried for a different approach, an appeal to her professionalism. “I just thought it might be nice for people to see the CEO and COO getting along and having a good time, that it might put some people more at ease.”

She narrowed her eyes skeptically, but she set down her drink on the nearest free surface and nodded her head in agreement, following him out to the dance floor.

He prayed that his palms weren’t too sweaty as he took her hand in one of his and placed the other with excruciating respectability on the small of her back, her own hand resting gently on his shoulder, so light he could barely feel it through his jacket.

“Do you want me to lead?” she teased casually, but the faint pink in her cheeks told him that she was just as affected as he was by the closeness of their bodies.

“I’ve got it,” he shot back without missing a beat, “I wouldn’t want you to break a hip.”

In response she slid her hand up his shoulder to the nape of his neck, digging her fingertips into his skin with her short, blunt nails until he groaned. “Brat,” she hissed.

His grip on her back tightened, pressing her closer to him, just close enough to feel the slightest brush of her breasts against his chest, just close enough that he could whisper in her ear.

“Meet me in your room at three a.m.”

She pulled away, just enough to put a respectable distance between them again. “What for?”

“I’ve got a question about a potential merger,” he answered in his Very Serious voice, as the song came to an end and they were forced to break apart.

***

When she opened her hotel door to him at ten to three, he was delighted to find her in nothing but a plush white bathrobe and his diamond earrings.

“Not very appropriately attired for a business meeting,” he admonished her as she closed the door behind him, checking both ways down the hallway first.

“I would have put in more of an effort if I thought you were thinking with your little brain instead of with your little dick.”

He shushed her and turned his attention to the television, fiddling with the stations until he found the live feed from some New Year’s Eve celebration in Hollywood.

“Roman, what are you doing?”

“You just flew back from California this morning, right? So your body is still on west coast time or whatever?”

“I guess.”

“So that bullshit earlier, where we toasted at midnight and you kissed me on the cheek like my Great Aunt Louise, that didn’t really count for you. This-” he gestured to the TV screen, counting down the last sixty seconds, “This could be our real New Year’s Eve countdown.”

It was the dead of night, in the dead of winter, but her soft, fond, unguarded smile felt like the warmth of a summer sun, like lying on the deck of some yacht out at sea, not a care in the world.

“Come here,” she ordered, as the crowd grew louder with the final ten seconds.

There was no one to see them then, no one to care if he wrapped both arms around her waist, if she slid her hand into his hair and tugged slightly, bringing his mouth to hers. Their noses clashed (unintentionally), and she bit his bottom lip (intentionally), and he could barely hear the crowd on TV over the pounding sound of his own heartbeat in his ears.

“Happy New Year,” he murmured when it was over, adding - because he needed to regain some of his defenses - “If you like looking at balls on New Year’s Eve I’ve got a couple more that I could show you.”

She snorted. “Happy New Year, Rome."

He let her usher him out of her room, back into the hallway, to start the short walk back to his own empty room. Some time soon, he thought, they’d be able to figure out the next part, together - the part where he slid his hands inside of her bathrobe, laid her down against the thousand pillows on her hotel bed, and made good on his months of lewd suggestions. They’d always been a pretty good team that way.

For now, they had a whole new year ahead of them.


End file.
